


a perfectly willing sacrifice

by blackeyedblonde



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aftercare, Ancient History, Aphrodisiacs, Aziraphale Has a Penis (Good Omens), Banter, Cervix Penetration, Come Inflation, Consensual Kink, Crowley Has A Vulva (Good Omens), Fanon, First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Getting Together, Happy Ending, He/Him Pronouns For Aziraphale (Good Omens), He/Him Pronouns For Crowley (Good Omens), Historical, Inappropriate Humor, Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), Interspecies Sex, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Medical Kink, Monsters, Mutual Pining, Mystical Creatures, Other, Overstimulation, Praise Kink, Restraints, Ritualistic Womb Cleansing, Rituals, Safe Sane and Consensual, Shapeshifting, Teratophilia, Transformation, Vaginal Sex, Virgin Sacrifice, Wetting, Womb Inflation, softer than it looks on the tin I swear lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:22:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29646417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackeyedblonde/pseuds/blackeyedblonde
Summary: Later that night, when neither he nor Aziraphale are sleeping in the advisor’s small hut, but rather getting quickly and efficiently smashed on some stripe of primitive alcohol so potent he’s pretty sure they could breathe fire with it, Crowley gets up the courage to ask what, exactly, the mountain spirit does to the sacrificial virgin peacemakers.“He, uh—well. You know. It’s...rather quite unsavory to talk about, dear. I’d rather not.”“Thisssis going to be me up there tomorrow, you bloody nit,” Crowley slurs, slamming his cup down on the table. “I need to know before I’m in the thick of it, don’t I?”Aziraphale looks visibly flustered, but attempts to press on. “The ritual entails….a special cleansing of your womb prior to the mountain spirit’s arrival. I’ll have to perform—hic!—the proper rites and blessings, you see. It’s something of a tedious process, all in all.”“I beg your fucking pardon!” Crowley half-shouts, suddenly a touch more sober than he was mere moments ago. “MYWOMB?”
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 193
Collections: Top Aziraphale Recs





	a perfectly willing sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> Been itching for some niche kink and monsterfuckin’ nonsense, so here we are! I'm tainting yet another fandom with my velvet-lined wiles and wares 😘
> 
> This is clearly a very-much-historical setting, though I don’t really go into exacts about the when’s and where’s; the mountain village is entirely fictional and not meant to reference any particular cultural group to my knowledge. Also, because it’s historical, not everything herein is politically correct or morally upright (such as, you know, ritually sacrificing young virgins to monsters lol).
> 
> CONTENT WARNINGS for fully consensual: restraints, ritualistic womb cleansing, overstimulation, use of herbal aphrodisiacs, ancient medical kink if you squint, cervix penetration, womb inflation, belly bulging, vaginal plugging, pseudo watersports if you squint (there is some wetting involved but it’s not urine, it’s ~ritualistic cleanse~ fluid lmao), liberal use of the word “womb,” considerable size difference, loss of corporeal form virginity, and Crowley proudly taking monster cock like a champ
> 
> I want to stress that because we’re talking about celestial entities who volunteered for this process, none of it hurts or causes any bodily trauma. The experience is pleasurable for Crowley from pretty much start to finish, even if there are a few fun surprises along the way and he cries at points from sheer overwhelming Feeling. He comes out of this entirely unscathed! And earns much praise for his valiant efforts. But if you feel like some part of this may trouble you per the warnings and tags, please feel free to click back and go on with your day. I know these kinks aren’t for everyone, even when done somewhat ~softly. 
> 
> For everybody else: hope you enjoy!

Crowley has only been in the mountain village for three days when he goes out into the stone-paved square one morning, somewhere between the hours of breakfast and early luncheon, and finds most of the local townsfolk gathered together in tightly woven groups, inclining their heads toward each other and speaking in hushed, fervent voices.

He weaves and bobs through the crowd with the ease of a serpent, making sure to pull the hem of his black shift up a little higher than necessary to show off the pale, freckled curve of one slim calf. Crowley can feel the mens’ eyes on him, heavy and hotly wary, though none make any move to jingle the coins in their leather pouches or call him aside. 

Their loss, he figures.

“What’s all this, then?” Crowley asks an older woman with most of her face concealed behind a muslin veil to keep the sun at bay. He next speaks from the corner of his mouth, eyes darting from side to side. “Don’t know about you, but I can smell a conspiracy brewing from a mile away.”

“Haven’t you heard?” the woman hisses in a dialect he hasn’t heard in a century or longer. Her green eyes waver with a glimmer of uncertainty when she meets Crowley’s golden ones, but if there is any fear there, it only shows for a fraction of a second. “Today the elders choose the virgin peacemaker.” 

“I’ll add that one to my list of punk rock band names for when the time comes,” Crowley says with a sigh, and then turns to the veiled woman again, only to find that she’s disappeared among the throngs of people. “Nice chat, Karen!” he calls out above their heads. “Really cleared things up for me, there.” 

But before Crowley can turn to try and siphon information from another bystanding mortal, a hush comes over the crowd and settles like a death shroud. All eyes stare straight ahead, the beating heat of the morning sun behind them all but burning holes into the backs of their heads.

“Brothers, sisters, good people of our bountiful village,” a voice calls out. “We gather together today to honor the sacred rites and rituals of old our ancestors placed before us, and so choose the next virgin peacemaker as successor to the last.” 

The orator is an older man, clearly of wealth and status judging by the cut and drape of his robes and the silver rings catching light on his thick fingers. Behind him, standing on a wooden platform eerily reminiscent of the gallows, are three young girls, no older than thirteen or fourteen each. Unlike the married women lingering in the square, none of these youngsters have yet donned a veil or hair covering, leaving their faces wide open to anybody who would choose to look.

Crowley only needs to peer at them for half a second to know they’re all positively scared beyond _shitless_. 

“These three young women have so bravely stepped forward with the encouragement and support of their fathers,” the chieftain says, voice booming in the still, silent air. “They are pure of mind and body, and know what sacrifice they are being so blessed to make in honor of the ongoing peace and safety of our village. Which among them will be chosen for the rites and rituals of old is to be determined by our council of elders and my trusted advisor, a man of high honor and great dignity—our comrade, Azira.”

When the chieftain steps aside, Crowley catches a glimpse of golden curls and feels his stomach drop into the leather soles of his sandals like a greased anvil. 

“Oh, well, hello there,” the newcomer says, only moderately audible through the quiet morning. He’s clearly still not comfortable with orating in front of large crowds, though Crowley has seen him do it a hundred times or more through the millennia. Leave it to the angel to bungle his public speaking skills even as an Instrument of the bloody Lord. 

“I understand you’re all very keen to know who will be chosen as the—ah, virgin, uh, peacemaker,” Aziraphale says, flashing a forced smile. “Upon the decision of the elders, I will guide them to the altar on the mountainside and perform the necessary cleansing before the ritualistic transaction can be complete. You’re all very familiar with this process, yes? So I’ll spare the details in case any among you have sensitive constitutions.”

Aziraphale makes a shallow bow and then steps back, returning the platform to the village chieftain. There are a few murmurs in the crowd, sounds of doubt and hisses of wary distrust, but nonetheless the booming voice cuts through them once more. 

“If there be any of you present who have a better candidate for our sacred virgin peacemaker, speak now or never! The elders will shortly convene in the golden hall to inspect our chosen ones for their ripeness and appeal for the great mountain spirit.”

Nobody speaks or dares make a sound. Crowley looks to his left, then to his right, and then straight ahead. “Oi, hey!” he shouts, waving an arm in the air. “I want to volunteer!” 

“Who speaks?” the chieftain asks, holding a hand over his eyes as he peers into the crowd. “Who among you?”  
  
Crowley goes to open his mouth again, but the people around him promptly part down the middle like Moses himself had struck them with his staff. He’s left standing there all alone, suddenly a bit bashful but nonetheless resolute. 

“Me, I guess,” he snorts, shrugging before pulling his shawl a little more tightly around himself. “I’m pure of body, not sure about _mind_ or _spirit_ , necessarily, but that’s debatable—uhm, so anyway. Where do I sign up?” 

The chieftain stares for a long, tense moment, but then makes a vague gesture with one hand, and two large men standing near the platform turn to make way toward Crowley. “The red-haired one as well,” he says dully, and then turns toward the three young girls behind him. “Come. The hour of your greatest honor is nearly upon us.” 

“Are there any perks to this?” Crowley asks one of the men on either side of him as they guide him toward the so-called golden hall of the elders. “A meal voucher or two wouldn’t hurt, y’know. Maybe an all-inclusive stay with open bar.” 

But neither of them speak, and as they pass the platform, Crowley makes sure to look square into the angel’s pale, disbelieving face and offer up a slow, amber-eyed wink. 

* * * * * 

One by one, the young girls disappear behind a screen to be examined by the chieftain’s so-called trusted advisor, the blond-headed man named Azira. He sounds quite apologetic about it, really, and awkwardly makes a small fuss of looking into their eyes and ears and checking their knee reflexes like that actually counts for anything when it comes to appeasing the appetite of a great mountain spirit.

Crowley can’t help but smile as he listens, knowing quite well the angel isn’t making any moves to lift their dresses or check the “purity” of anything other than their God-given souls. 

When it’s his turn to be examined, he can barely hold back the grin on his face as he slips around the painted screen and comes face to face with his oldest and dearest enemy. 

“ _What_ , pray tell, are you _doing_ here?” Aziraphale asks right off the bat, irritated enough that he’s already pouting out his bottom lip in mild fury. 

“I should ask you the same question,” Crowley says, gathering up his shift and gracefully sliding onto the small wooden table. 

“Now see here—I asked you first,” the angel hisses, trying to keep his voice low until he gives up and waves an aggravated hand around them, sealing their little space off into a quiet bubble. 

Fair is fair, then. Crowley just rolls one shoulder and tips his head back, studying Aziraphale from beneath his ginger lashes. “It appears I’m here to be examined to see if I’m a choice cut for the mountain spirit’s snack plate. And you?”  
  
Aziraphale doesn’t seem completely satisfied with that answer, but he relents enough to let some of the tension fall from his shoulders. “Well,” he sighs. “I’ve come to, uhm—peacefully and properly prepare a virgin sacrifice for the village’s yearly offering with actual reverence and care, but it seems we have a rogue contender misplaced in the mix.”  
  
Crowley blinks, then lets the corner of his mouth quirk up on one side. “What would you say if I told you I wasn’t misplaced at all?”  
  
The angel snorts, waving him off. “I’d assume you were lying, as most foul fiends are wont to do.”  
  
“Perhaps I’ve done a little switcheroo myself, eh?” Crowley quips straightaway, eyes flashing in challenge. “So some innocent virgin girl in town wouldn’t get gobbled up by some great ugly git.”   
  
Aziraphale suddenly goes oddly pale. “You couldn’t possibly be—a virgin!” 

“Three thousand years and counting, darling,” Crowley says, tipping his chin up another fraction of an inch. “I don’t put out for just anybody.”  
  
Aziraphale gazes at him, mouth slightly parted, saying nothing for what feels like a small eternity. Crowley only gazes back and tries not to squirm where he sits. 

At last the angel smoothes his hands down the front of his tunic and says, mildly, “Well, this is rather awkward, to put it lightly.” 

“You don’t say,” Crowley mumbles, reaching up to pull the scarf off his hair. “Are you going to have a look at me, or not?”  
  
Aziraphale’s mouth screws up in a crooked line, pursed and thoughtful. “There’s no need,” he says. “I think we both know you’re the right choice, in terms of sparing innocent young people who would otherwise find themselves in the light of God.” 

“Or the absence of him,” Crowley says with a snort, idly swinging his sandaled feet to and fro where he’s still perched. “What? I think you got here a touch late, angel, considering these humble people are still intent on worshipping their so-called mountain spirit.” 

“I’m _here_ ,” Aziraphale says somewhat coldly, “to put a stop to this heathen practice once and for all. The fact that you showed up at all, is, well—not entirely without merit, but surprising nonetheless.” His eyes narrow a fraction. “What’s your side got to do with all this, anyway?” 

“Nothing,” Crowley says, making a dubious gesture. “I just came ‘round to peddle some of my usual wiles and temptations, as one does, and thought I’d be some dimwitted do-gooder for a lark, I s’pose.”

Aziraphale’s expression softens some at that, and it makes the pit of Crowley’s stomach suspiciously warm. _Too_ warm. 

“You’ve always had a soft spot for the children, haven’t you,” the angel sighs, shaking his head affectionately. 

“Disputable,” Crowley sniffs, looking away.

“Oh no you don’t, I well remember the Ark and all the times before and after that, too,” Aziraphale says, lightly slapping the demon’s knee. “You can’t run one past me, dear boy. And here you are again, putting yourself in harm’s way to spare innocents. I think that’s rather admirable, don’t you?” 

Crowley makes a wretched face and all but hisses, “If you don’t cut that out I’m going to think twice about it and bugger off without helping you, so let’s get this sodding show on the road before I change my mind!” 

“Very well then,” Aziraphale snaps, back to business. He glances sidelong at Crowley from the corner of his eye and clears his throat. “I’m to have thoroughly inspected you before I give a report to the elders. Is your—ahem. If they _ask_ , which I pray to our Heavenly Father Above they _do not,_ can you...prove...your virginity?” 

“You know all that hymen nonsense is a load of bollocks,” Crowley says resentfully. “I could go out in the town square and do a cartwheel and suddenly not be a virgin anymore, by these patriarchal antiquarian standards they’re putting up.” 

Aziraphale sighs, reaching up to run a hand through his hair. “Crowley…”

Crowley abruptly snaps his fingers, then, and wiggles a little in place. “It’s all there. Are you satisfied?”

“For the moment, maybe,” Aziraphale sniffs, gathering up a bundle of scrolls and making as if to leave. “I’m going to do my best to influence their decision for peacemaker—we should have the answer by sundown, and the ritual sacrifice will begin tomorrow at dawn.” 

“I’ll see you there,” Crowley says, cool and confident. He wraps his scarf back around his hair and throws the long tail over one shoulder with a flourish. “Bright and early.” 

Aziraphale watches him, expression gone strangely unreadable. “We can only hope,” he says, and thusly goes to deliver his findings to the waiting council. 

* * * * *

“The elders have spoken!” the chieftain cries out that evening, just on the cusp of nightfall. He stands on the platform again, this time lit by torches burning against fiery dusk. “The virgin peacemaker has been chosen; for the prosperous year ahead, we owe our continued blessings and protections to the fair maiden _Antonia of Crawlee!_ ” 

The three young girls standing huddled around Crowley burst into tears at the announcement. He’d done his best to console and reassure them while they waited in the golden hall, but hearing their official pardon aloud must be overwhelming. 

“Shh, sh—go on, now,” he whispers, shooing them off to rejoin their families. “I promise this won’t happen again next year, but tell whoever signed you up that they’ve got a special seat reserved in hell, yeah? I’m personally guaranteeing it.” 

Aziraphale, standing a few metres away, glances over and catches Crowley’s eye. He only shrugs in return, brows high on his head. “What? It’s true.” 

“Brothers, sisters, you and your families can rest easy tonight with the reassurance that our village will remain safe for another turn of seasons here in the mountain realm,” the chieftain says gravely, taking a woven crown of flowers and placing it atop Crowley’s hair. “The ritual sacrifice will begin as the sun rises.”

If Crowley was expecting applause, none ever comes. The village people simply stare up at him with openly relieved faces, having not the words to express how grateful they are that the person standing on the platform isn’t they themselves or someone they love. All of them sacrificial sheep spared the sacred indignity of seeing their blood being splashed across the altar. 

Later that night, when neither he nor Aziraphale are sleeping in the advisor’s small hut, but rather getting quickly and efficiently smashed on some stripe of primitive alcohol so potent he’s pretty sure they could breathe fire with it, Crowley gets up the courage to ask what, exactly, the mountain spirit does to the sacrificial virgin peacemakers. 

“He, uh—well. You know. It’s...rather quite unsavory to talk about, dear. I’d rather not.” 

“ _Thisss_ is going to be me up there tomorrow, you bloody nit,” Crowley slurs, slamming his cup down on the table. “I need to know before I’m in the thick of it, don’t I?” 

Aziraphale looks visibly flustered, but attempts to press on. “The ritual entails….a special cleansing of your womb prior to the mountain spirit’s arrival. I’ll have to perform— _hic!_ —the proper rites and blessings, you see. It’s something of a tedious process, all in all.” 

“I beg your fucking pardon!” Crowley half-shouts, suddenly a touch more sober than he was mere moments ago. “MY _**WOMB**?_” 

Aziraphale throws back another shot of whatever gasoline it is they’re drinking and makes a wretched face. “Yes,” he says, dropping his head onto his forearms. “Even virgins must be cleansed before they can be made into an offering. It’s not painful, of course...at least not for _you_. That wouldn’t do, not at all.” 

Crowley rakes a hand back through his hair, staring hard at a far point on the wall. “Have you ever performed this so-called _cleansing_ on somebody before?”  
  
“Never,” Aziraphale says without pause, reaching to pour himself another glass and letting some dribble onto the table by accident. “But there’s a first time for everything, isn’t there? I’ll have to take a peek at the shaman’s manual tonight. Oh, dear.” 

“You do realize how completely and utterly fucked this is, right?” Crowley asks, gazing at the angel. “And...strangely kinky, too, if you sit and think about it for a turn.” 

“I’m— _we!_ —are here to put a stop to it,” Aziraphale says, pointing at Crowley. “Once and for all. These demigods and whatnot, they’ve mostly stopped popping up through the ages, but sometimes things get out of hand and...you know the rest,” Aziraphale says. “Humans and their free will are a force to be reckoned with, aren’t they?” 

Crowley gapes at him for a long moment, and then picks up his refilled cup. There’s no real telling what dawn will bring upon him, but if he knows anything at all, he knows he’s survived worse. 

“I’ll drink to that,” he says, toasting the angel. “To free fuckin’ will.” 

“To free will,” Aziraphale says, knocking their cups together with the finality of a judge’s falling gavel.

* * * * *

In the hours before dawn, a group of shrouded men come to the advisor’s hut with nothing but starlight to guide them and have Crowley clamber up onto a snow white donkey mare. The poor beast trembles on its tiny hooves, even as he tries to soothingly stroke her neck—like it knows the journey up the mountain very well, and fears what lurks there at the end of the winding path. 

Behind them, Aziraphale leads another beast of burden along, the baskets lashed to its sides rattling and jostling with glass bottles and vials stoppered with beeswax. Crowley doesn’t know what’s in them, yet, and doesn’t bother to ask. 

They reach the altar there at the pass before the sun even breaches the eastern horizon. The shrouded men lash Crowley to the altar by his wrists and ankles, and then leave without another word. The baskets are emptied and their contents set aside, and the two donkeys kick up dust in their haste as they bray and scurry back down the path toward the village. 

When Aziraphale and Crowley are alone, the angel comes to Crowley’s side and gazes down at him in the weakly brightening hour before dawn. 

“It occurs to me that we could make this whole thing a big write-off, deal with the residual fallout and just take our losses where they may fall,” he says. “The particulars of these rituals aren’t designed to hurt you, but I fear they may breach some of—whatever it is that has come to have meaning between us, you understand.” 

“And what is that, exactly?” Crowley asks, swallowing tightly. “If you’d like to share with the class now that we’re halfway into the field trip.” 

Aziraphale sighs, and then touches Crowley’s wrists and ankles one by one so that the binding there won’t burn or rub his skin raw. “I don’t know,” he whispers, for one small moment sounding unsure. “But I think you sense it, as well.” 

Crowley, if he’s being honest with himself, has sensed _something_ inside about the Angel of the Eastern Gate since the morning Aziraphale admitted he gave his flaming bloody sword away. But it’s always been easier to tuck that thought aside in a closed box and not analyze it too much, of course. Simpler that way. Topside workplace relationships and all being what they are, you know. 

“Listen, angel,” he says, watching as the first ring of sun appears behind Aziraphale in the open crook of his elbow. “You might be breaching _something_ , today, but it doesn’t have to be anything like that. I...trust you. Against my better judgement, but—I really do, alright? I wouldn’t be strapped to this sodding slab of stone if I didn’t.”

Aziraphale tries to smile at that. “I know,” he sighs, “but even so. Some intimacies are kindled, and others are merely stumbled upon by happenstance. I had hoped...well.” 

“Hoped for what?” Crowley asks, corporeal heart pounding like a drum in his chest. “What do you hope for?” 

“I wish this hadn’t been something forced upon us in such a unique situation, is all,” Aziraphale says, reaching up to brush Crowley’s curls back with utmost tenderness, and that single touch alone nearly makes tears spring to the demon’s eyes. 

“Forget all that,” Crowley rasps, hating that he already sounds like a wreck. “We’ll have more fun and a better story this way. That’s what counts, right?” 

Aziraphale sighs and shakes his head again, but at least there’s a ghost of a smile hanging around his pretty mouth. “If looking at it that way helps, Crowley, then I would be remiss to take it from you.” 

The angel turns to inspect the rising sun and sighs. “Let me go get the supplies that have been prepared,” he says, moving away. “It seems we’re already behind schedule.”

“Go ahead,” Crowley says, looking down at himself. “I’m not running off anywhere too fast.” 

When Aziraphale comes back, he makes quick but careful work of mixing pinches of herbs and other tonics into a wide glass flask, swirling it all together until it’s mixed into some kind of murky concoction. He produces a narrow metal tube that seems to be somewhat crudely fashioned from what remarkably looks like solid gold, and attached to that is a longer length of some organic tubing that may or may not have once been the intestines of a goat or boar. 

“Looks pretty primitive,” Crowley says, eyeballing the little stitched squeeze-bulb attached to the place the two tubes meet. “Are you sure it...works?” 

“Every year hitherto, according to the shaman’s log,” Aziraphale says, snapping his fingers and banishing Crowley’s garments from existence, save for a white cotton swath of fabric draped across his knees. “Are you cold, dear?” 

“A bit,” Crowley admits, shifting some in place as his nipples harden and pebble against the cool air, and then suddenly the stone beneath him is radiating comforting warmth into his body from below. 

Aziraphale holds up the gold tube, looking at it in his hand with something of an affronted expression. Crowley stares at it, too, oddly fascinated and suddenly aware of the strange tingling between his legs as he watches the angel smear some kind of salve on the end of it. His corporation seems to know what’s coming before he himself does, because he feels the cool air hit something wet that wasn’t previously gathered there at the junction between his thighs.

“I never thought I’d get to say this, angel, but just put it in me and get this going already,” Crowley blurts out. “If you need a formal invitation, let me go ahead and get out my calligraphy set. The suspense may as well discorporate me.” 

“Quit straining so much, and loosen your pelvic muscles,” Aziraphale says, slipping a hand beneath the drape to touch the muscles in question quivering in the demon’s abdomen. He takes a deep breath, in and out, and seems to steel himself. “Well, here we go.”

The golden tube slips in easily through his slick entrance, and Crowley shivers as the warmed metal breaches him. Beneath the drape over his thighs, Aziraphale keeps one calming hand low on his belly while the other works the strange little contraption up further, slow and careful.  
  
“Relax, dear,” he says, stroking a thumb over the delicate strip of skin between Crowley’s hip and groin. “Take a deep breath in and then let it out, you’ve drawn up too much.” 

Crowley does as he’s told, slowly in and out, just like that, and when all the wind has seemingly left him something slips into a part of him he didn’t know he could feel with a tiny _pop_ behind his navel, and then all the air in his lungs truly feels like it was sucked out of him in a tight vacuum.

“Oo- _ohh_ ,” he moans the next time he can remember to breathe, squirming some on the altar. His eyes and face are immediately hot, not with any emotion he can pinpoint but if this is how he’s faring at the beginning of All This, he’s scared witless to know how the rest of the ritual is going to go.

“Keep breathing,” Aziraphale soothes despite the light tremor in his voice, still petting low over Crowley’s abdomen. “I’m going to push it in a bit further, now, and form a seal. Are you alright?” 

“Right as rain,” Crowley manages to rasp out, voice trying to warble in his throat. “Not like I’m some metaphysical shishkabob or anything right now.” 

“You and that crass sense of humor,” Aziraphale sighs, giving his head a solemn shake. “Come now, don’t taint our sacred ritual.” 

“Speaking of taint—” Crowley starts to joke, lightheartedly trying to take the slightest edge off of whatever is currently happening, because he’s suddenly made entirely of hard edges and nothing else, and then Aziraphale squeezes a little bulb in his right hand and Crowley’s human vision goes white. 

He—feels. The pressure, at first, as the narrow tube swells and creates a seal at the core of him, and then the warmth of it blooming through his pelvis, like this is a song his body has waited ten millennia to sing. Aziraphale squeezes the little bulb again, and he does cry out this time, and whether it’s in prayer or damnation he doesn’t have the wits to remember. 

“Angel,” Crowley hisses, bucking his hips up against nothing but the placid warmth of Aziraphale’s palm below his navel. “Oh—I can feel—you’re in—my— _my—”_

“That’s your womb, yes,” Aziraphale says, light as a feather. “A perfect fit, I daresay. I think we’re ready to start the cleansing, now, if you feel comfortable.” 

“I,” Crowley chokes, gold eyes simmering under heavy lids. “Yes. M’ready. _God._ Do it. _Fuck._ ” 

“Very well,” the angel says, and then goes to twist a little valve attached to the soft tube. He attaches another piece to it, secures it in place, and leads that tube down to the heavy glass flask of elixir resting on the stone by his knees. Crowley isn’t sure what negative pressure and physics are at work in terms of the mechanics of it all, since physics haven’t even really been _discovered_ yet, but with Aziraphale at the helm he knows it’s going to happen regardless. 

“Close your eyes, breathe, _focus_ ,” Aziraphale says, reaching up to smooth a hand over Crowley’s forehead. “Listen to the sound of my voice if that helps ground you. I’m right here with you, and I’ll be here every step of the way.” 

Crowley closes his eyes, breathes, and thinks: _This is fine. Just dandy. The angel is about to rinse me out like a Thanksgiving turkey. I wonder if—_  
  
Then the first trickling spill of liquid warmth falling inside his womb makes Crowley come on the spot. 

He’d be real bloody embarrassed about it, too, if the sensation of viscous fluid gushing into him in little spurts wasn’t making his head spin. The bizarre pleasure of it rocks over him like a wave, soothing and maddening all at once. He’s being filled but it’s not enough to satiate the sweetest, flaring ache pulsing inside him now. His muscles clench and flutter tightly around the narrow tube to no avail, and the angel’s elixir simply keeps pouring into the open well of his belly. 

“It’s a rather agreeable concoction, isn’t it?” Aziraphale says, gazing down at Crowley with nothing but pale light radiating from him. “Ginkgo biloba, bindii plant, other dried herbs, mountain spring water blessed by virgin sisters. They act as aphrodisiacs in addition to the spiritual cleansing properties; your body will bloom open like a night flower when it’s ready.” 

Crowley moans, long and deep, the sound of it shuddering up out of him like some wretched creature. “Re—ready for what, exactly?” he croaks, looking up at Aziraphale with tears at the corners of his eyes.

“Oh, darling,” Aziraphale says softly, petting his hair. “That’s between you and the mountain spirit, isn’t it?” 

The more he’s filled with the cleansing elixir, the more that delightful pressure rises within him. Crowley struggles against his restraints and miserably tries to clench around the device inside him, seeking release but not quite able to find it again. His belly begins to swell, a gentle roundness forming there between his hip bones, and he didn’t know or believe his body could hold this much but the elixir simply keeps pouring into him.

“It’s so much,” he whimpers, letting the tears streak back into his temples now, uncaring. “Zira’phale, blimey.” 

“Are you in any pain?” the angel asks, inclining his head with concern. 

“No, no,” Crowley says, aching but not with anything that hurts. He squeezes his eyes shut and trembles, wondering how much more he can withstand before that rocking pleasure crests over him again. “How much longer?” 

“You’ve nearly taken the whole flask,” Aziraphale says, a hint of something like pride hiding at the edges of his voice. “Once you’ve finished, we’ll have to keep the cleansing liquid within you for a short time before it’s expelled again.”  
  
“Okay,” Crowley says, nodding mindlessly. “S’no problem...all good...gods, I’m so _full_.”  
  
“Shh,” Aziraphale gently hushes him, gently withdrawing the tube once some of the air has released from the makeshift valve. “You’ve done so well, Crowley. I’m going to put this device in place now, alright? You may feel a slight stretch.” 

Crowley can’t see what the angel takes in his left hand, but the golden tube withdraws from his body with a deliberate carefulness, and then something heavy and so much larger is swiftly but tenderly pressed up into the empty space inside him, wide at the base and tapered and rounded at the tip so it nestles right into the opening there at the mouth of his womb. 

If Crowley cared to breathe, he’s certain he wouldn’t be able to. The angel uses the heel of his hand to press the polished stone up into him at just the right angle, applying gentle pressure, and that’s all it takes for the dam inside him to collapse, and he cries out as he bears down on the plug hard enough that he fears it may break inside him. 

“Oh shit, oh f-fuck, _angel_ ,” he heaves, body still fluttering and trying to milk the stone for something it won’t give him while sacred fluid sloshes around in his belly like the sea itself. 

“You should see yourself like this,” Aziraphale says, moving again to brush the hair away from Crowley’s damp forehead. “I couldn’t have possibly imagined it before, but you really are quite a marvel to behold.”

However much time passes after that, Crowley doesn’t really know—he’s in a place beyond minutes and hours, now, where he can really do nothing but feel, in so many more ways than one. But then Aziraphale’s hands are upon him again, one resting on the flared end of the stone where it juts out of him, the other stroking over Crowley’s cheekbone like they’ve been lovers in the three thousand years leading up to this moment and not two fairweather friends dancing together behind enemy lines. 

“I’m going to remove this now,” Aziraphale says, calm but intent. “Don’t try to hold anything in, dear. Just let it come as it may.”

For as long as Crowley’s been roaming the earth, he’s never once experienced anything like this. There’s a gentle cramp inside him, nothing painful as much as it is an indicator that something is _working_ , and then Aziraphale carefully pulls the plug from where it’s been so intimately nestled inside him. At first, nothing happens—and then there’s the barest trickle of warm wetness dribbling from between his legs, something sudden and beyond his control. 

Aziraphale rolls the heel of his palm over that tiny swell at Crowley’s abdomen, careful in his coaxing, but the residual gush of fluid that comes out is enough to bring Crowley back to the edge again. He’s terribly aroused, and mildly humiliated, but still trapped between this slab of stone and the freeing headrush of some strange catharsis. 

Maybe he’s crying again; if he is, it’s only for the two of them to know. 

Aziraphale presses down on his abdomen again and there’s another rush of herbal cleansing fluid expelled from his body, running over the side of the stone in tiny rivulets and dampening the earth underneath. Crowley will only later think about the old world myths, about Olympian tears and Titan blood spilled upon the earth, begetting hyacinths and aster and roses in their wake. What flows from him now may not be anything as sacred, but he’ll still wonder what could be beget from a demon’s emptied womb, if anything at all. 

“You’ve been so good and brave to do this, Crowley,” Aziraphale says, thumbing at the corners of the demon’s eyes. “Even among angels I don’t think any would be so selfless to step in place of mortals.”

Crowley peers up at him with damp eyes, lashed to the stone slab, humming with warmth from the inside as the herbal aphrodisiac continues to prepare him for whatever may come next. He feels emptier than before, hollowed out in a way, though his entire body thrums like a live current begging for conduction.  
  
“Aziraphale,” he says, trying to quell some of the trembling in his voice. “Before you go, can I ask for something. Small favor, I guess.” 

“Of course,” the angel says, striking and benevolent with the sun haloed behind him. “Anything you’d like.”

Crowley closes his eyes again, not wanting to see any of the disgust or horror on the angel’s face. He breathes, in and out, and then forgets the facade of human respiration altogether. 

“Could I tempt you for a kiss?” he asks, wrecked voice sounding foreign to his own ears as he tries for a laugh. “Even though it seems we’ve already jumped over first base and pile-drived home plate into the dirt.”

Aziraphale is quiet for a few beats, during which Crowley is pretty sure his damned, blackened soul sizzles into ash and reanimates at least three times. He doesn’t dare open his eyes again, but he hears the soft sigh leave the angel’s lips and tries to wrap that sound around himself like the comfort of two white wings he’s dreamt of for three millennia.

“It’s a little too soon for baseball metaphors, dear boy, don’t you think?” Aziraphale asks, and then, blessed be Satan and all the rest, Crowley feels a tender hand curl in his hair, and then the tip of the angel’s nose brushing his own as Aziraphale leans in and presses his soft lips right against Crowley’s.

The kiss lingers, chaste and far gentler than anything Crowley could ever deserve. He drinks it down like ambrosia but doesn’t dare try to deepen it, simply feeling the shape of Aziraphale’s cupid’s bow against his mouth, memorizing it down to the cellular level and somewhere beyond.

“There,” the angel says as he pulls back, smiling and slightly pink in the cheeks. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” 

“No,” Crowley rasps, wishing he could reach up to touch the place where the angel’s lips had just been. “S’perfect.”

His abdomen is back to its normal shape and size now, emptied out and ritually cleansed to a perfection that can be felt. He trembles there on the stone altar, not from any cold but from the sheer exertion of wanting to be filled again, to be made something whole.

“Well, I believe my work here is done,” Aziraphale says brightly, miracling a clean cloth into his hands and carefully wiping them down. “This part of the ritual is complete.” 

Crowley blinks up at him as the angel turns to dab at his sweaty brow. “You can’t stay ‘round for moral support while this mountain arsehole takes me for a ride?” he asks.

Aziraphale shakes his head, looking torn about it himself. “Not in this form,” he says. “The sacrifice would be null with my presence.” 

“Well, alright then,” Crowley says, sniffing a bit. His nakedness doesn’t even occur to him now, though the aching between his legs courses through him like a second heartbeat, and his patience is wearing thin. “If you see him anywhere along the path, tell him to hurry the hell up, yeah?” 

“I’ll do my best,” Aziraphale says, and then kindly smooths Crowley’s hair back once more. “You’ll be alright? I know this process is quite...intensive, in places.” 

“I think that’s a bit of an understatement, but we’ll roll with it,” Crowley huffs around a rasping laugh. “I’m just glad it was me and none of those poor village girls.”

“We’re doing a good thing by putting an end to it,” Aziraphale tells him, quickly storing all the empty vials and herb pots away in the basket they brought up with them. “ _You_ are doing a good thing, I might add.”

“Ngh, you’ve already said as much,” Crowley groans, tipping his head back against the stone. “That stuff you put in me—just know, it’s bloody working.”

“I’m glad,” Aziraphale says with a small upturn of his mouth, and then goes to take his leave without further comment. Crowley feels his presence move away like the sun being blocked out, a gentle warmth and then the stark absence of it. 

He sighs, closing his eyes to think of that small kiss he’ll keep safe in the heart of his fist for eternity, and has nothing else to do but wait.

Early morning settles back in around him now that he has the presence of mind to remember it. Tiny birds flit and dart about, and the sky continues to brighten into robin egg’s blue overhead. If Crowley listens hard enough, he can hear the sounds of the village waking below, of animals lowing and braying and women shouting after children as they scramble around tables for breakfast.

He thinks some about his metaphorical virginity and why he’d been holding onto it for so long, only to give it up now. The answer is right there, red and irritated, an itch just under the surface he can’t seem to scratch away—but there’s no use in thinking about that, Crowley supposes. He’d be a fool on a fool’s errand, twice mad and never richer for it. 

Frustrated now, he huffs out an impatient breath and shouts, “I’m _waiting_!” 

The air changes, then, static and electrified all at once as Crowley feels the familiar tug of something prickling upon his skin. He’s not so far gone into damnation that he doesn’t recognize grace when it brushes up against him. 

He hisses on instinct, and is nearly tempted to break his binds and flee—until he catches a familiar ghost of something touching him upon what feels like the very lobes of his brain, in the same moment feeling like a warm whisper in his right ear. 

“It’s me, dear,” Aziraphale’s voice says from nowhere and everywhere at once. “Er—surprise? Seems we’ve both done up a little switcheroo this morning.” 

“ _Angel?_ ” Crowley croaks, confused and feeling far too much. “What the—sodding hell are you on about? Where’s the great big git come down to ravage me?” 

Feathers rustle nearby, and then in a flash of soft white and pale blue Crowley catches sight of the thing in the corner of his eye. It looks like a dragon, or maybe not—he’s never seen a dragon with fur or feet like a lion before, but this creature certainly has both in spades.

“At your service, after all,” Aziraphale says, and then the not-dragon is right there beside him, looming over with a great bow its scaled, feathery body shouldn’t be able to contort into. “I thought it prudent to spare the village children myself, as it turned out. Uncanny how we’re of a similar mind, don’t you think?” 

Crowley gapes, and the creature’s jarringly familiar blue eyes gaze back at him. “You,” he tries. “And me? This. Oh, bloody hell.”  
  
“You needn’t be afraid,” Aziraphale says, ruffling a bit. “I know this is new to you, and my whole reasoning was to spare an innocent—all we have to do is create an illusion that satisfies the village elders. No more, no less.” 

“And the actual mountain spirit they’re trying to appease!?” Crowley half-shouts. “What of them?” 

Aziraphale the dragon-beast seems to shrug. “I sent him on a would-be holiday for a few thousand years. They won’t need to worry for a while after such a bountiful sacrifice, as it were.” 

“Well, you’ve already buffed my insides to a high chrome sheen,” Crowley snorts. “Was that for show, too? No reason to let all that hard work go to waste.” 

Aziraphale sits back on his haunches, perched there like a cat taking pause. “You want to—right here? Like this. With _me?_ ”

Crowley shrugs as much as his binds will let him. “Why not? Had to get it over with sooner or later.” 

“This is hardly appropriate for your first time,” Aziraphale says immediately, sounding distraught at the mere idea. “You deserve—” 

“What?” Crowley cuts in over him. “Rose petals and silk sheets and candles? Save it, angel. I’m a demon, if you’ve forgotten already.” 

Aziraphale’s eyes narrow in the creature’s long face, and then it leans close, warm, wet nose pressing very close to Crowley’s ear. “That doesn’t mean you deserve anything less than the utmost care and devotion, you know. Why do you think I volunteered to prepare you for the altar?” 

“Beats me,” Crowley says, voice suddenly gone quite small in his throat. “I suppose you’re the only other thing on two legs in the general vicinity who remotely knows their way around a celestial uterus, but that reasoning aside.” 

“I didn’t want anybody to get hurt,” Aziraphale says, quietly, drawing back again. “But maybe I was a fool.” 

“S’not what I mean,” Crowley says, sighing. They must really look a sight right now, bickering like an old married couple while one of them is prepped for sacrificial shagging and the other is half the size of a house. “You’re not a fool, angel. Well—maybe a little bit, for being too good to me, of all people.”

There is a low rumble in the beast’s throat that could pass for a chuckle if you knew what you were looking for. “Heavens, the paperwork this will stack up,” Aziraphale says, shaking his great head to and fro like an animal. “I wasn’t thinking clearly, was I?” 

“We could put on a rather good show, don’t you think?” Crowley asks, suddenly feeling deviant and very much in need of the fucking he was promised, at all possible costs. “Really pull out the stops and give them what they came for plus some.”  
  
Aziraphale blows out a snort of indignant air through his nostrils. “I don’t make it a habit, you know, partaking in such lurid acts of voyeurism.”  
  
“You are simply fulfilling an obligation to maintain the order of Things,” Crowley says. “The fact that I was here as the sacrificial offering is completely outside your angelic wheelhouse. It was...what’s the word, again? Ah. _Ineffable_.” 

“But even then,” Aziraphale says, sounding strained. “I can’t believe your first time is with...some fearsome beast beyond mortal description.”  
  
“What’s your shape got to do with it?” Crowley whines, trying and failing to squeeze his thighs together in vain as his pulse continues to quicken. “It’s still you in there, ain’t it?”

“Well—in a sense, yes, I suppose,” Aziraphale says at length, standing again to pad over to where Crowley is tethered to the altar. His blue eyes widen some in the beast’s face, like something has only just really begun to dawn upon him. “Oh my. That herbal aphrodisiac really worked, didn’t it?” 

Crowley wants to cry and beg, but he’s still got the faintest scrap of dignity left—that, and being a bastard. “You said it yourself, earlier,” he chokes out. “Well, I’ve gone ahead and bloomed open like some unholy night flower—and if you don’t shag me within the next minute, Aziraphale, I swear I’ll have to call in somebody who fucking _will._ ”

“Oh, damn all this,” the beast curses, but then winds and wends itself around the stone altar like a pacing panther, leaving vast paw prints in the dirt. “This is really rather indecent, Crowley. On all fronts, I’ll have you know!”  
  
“You’re talking about decency with a demon like I give one toss, you great big prat,” Crowley moans, trembling now. “Oh my God, just ravish me. _Please_. I’m begging you to do it—for Satan’s sake, you’d be doing me a favor. A BLESSING, angel. I’m about to go mental over here!” 

His chest heaves with long, torturous pants, and he doesn’t think he’ll be able to think clearly ever again unless he gets stuffed full of something, and that something, he knows, is currently hidden in a furred sheath low between the beast’s hind legs. 

Aziraphale rounds the altar one more time and then delicately hefts his two front paws up onto it with a flutter of wings like he’s nothing more than a housecat, though his form in this shape looms large enough over Crowley to block out the sun’s rays. He stares down at the demon with an unreadable expression, and then tips his great head just-so, so that Crowley can see the nerve-addled hesitation there. 

“I don’t want this to change things between us, Crowley,” Aziraphale says. “Not when we’ve...come as far as we have, you know.” 

Crowley’s golden eyes gaze back into his, clear for just long enough to convey the sincerity he feels. “What if it changed things for the better?” he asks, hating how his voice shakes around the words in his throat. Around a terrible lump of what might be hope.

“You’ve always been the most peculiar optimist, haven’t you?” Aziraphale says, long-suffering in his way, though he bows his head and nuzzles a whiskery, scaly muzzle against Crowley’s cheek. “Very well, foul fiend. Prepare thyself to be...uhm, Filled with His Light and Glory, as it were.”

Crowley feels as if the very stone sags beneath him with relief. “Do your absolute worst,” he says in feeble encouragement, even now wishing he could reach up and touch the soft white on Aziraphale’s chest to feel it beneath his hands. “Smite me six ways to Sunday, angel. I’m a perfectly willing sacrifice.”

“Yes, you are,” Aziraphale sighs, though an appreciative sort of rumble vibrates in the back of his throat. His monstrous body moves and he positions himself in such a way that Crowley knows the angle will be just right for what it needs to do. “We’ll need to have a very long talk about this later, you know.” 

“We can talk about it right blessed now, so long as you put your cock in me,” Crowley says. “I’ve been laying here waiting since the last Ice Age.” 

“Goodness gracious,” Aziraphale says, flustered, and then a moment later Crowley feels something very hot and heavy land somewhere along his naked thigh, nearly as long as his arm and as big around as a solid cut of lumber. “Er—sorry, dear. First time at the helm with this form.”

But Crowley doesn’t mind too much, because quite suddenly his mouth is watering, eyes streaming, body outright _singing_ like a harp with the absolute need to feel that certain something split him in half. Deep inside, in the place where Aziraphale’s cool stone plug had slid into him, his body has softened and unfurled itself into nothing more than a hall of welcoming. Crowley begins to think this is only ever what he was made or intended for, if it was all merely leading up to this moment. 

On the second try, the pinkened tip of the mountain beast’s cock finds its intended target, and with a slow surge forward Aziraphale presses himself into the open entrance of Crowley’s waiting body, all the while keeping his blue eyes trained on the demon’s face like he’s watching the impending rapture.

Crowley’s eyelids flutter and he bites his lower lip a raspberry shade of vivid pink, even as Aziraphale’s powerful hips shift and he sinks to a newer, more delightful depth. The beast’s muscles strain with some exertion, and when Crowley gains enough brief presence of mind to peer downward over his own chest and belly, he can see how much marbled cock he’s got left to take.

“All of it,” he hisses, trying and failing to roll his hips for more. “Aziraphale. _Now_.”

“You’re very demanding, aren’t you,” Aziraphale huffs, and then the beast’s mouth and long tongue are at Crowley’s throat, sliding over his hummingbird-quick pulse and along the hinge of his jaw. “Have patience, my dear.” 

None of it hurts, not even one bit, save for the delightful ache of a stretch that’s only beginning to be enough. Crowley whines long and low as Aziraphale’s length slips another scant bit deeper, and then his breath goes out of him all at once when that divine, strange cockhead noses up against the barrier at the entrance of his womb.

“Ah, here we are,” Aziraphale says, sounding satisfied. “You did open right up like a blooming brugmansia under the moonlight, didn’t you?” 

“ _Yesss_ ,” Crowley hisses, feeling, feeling, everything, like his body is nothing but one raw nerve held up against such holy fire.

“Here’s a little secret between us,” Aziraphale says, slipping back out of Crowley’s slick entrance enough to make the demon cry out. “Brugmansia is also called angel’s trumpet. How fitting, for such a beautiful vessel come so willingly to be cradled in my hands and made to sing.” 

And then, with one purposeful piston of his hips, Aziraphale thrusts beyond that barrier within him and hilts himself in Crowley’s very core.

For one fleeting moment that goes on in perpetuity, Crowley feels the stars collide inside him again, feels the wrecked orbit of his damnation pour itself back across the fabric of something so divine it may have once been a place he called home. If he cries out, he doesn’t know or hear it. If he weeps, such is the nature of feeling so perfectly whole.

Aziraphale moves in earnest, then, rolling in and out of Crowley’s body like the relentless but gently dancing tide. He laps up some of the demon’s tears and then nuzzles his great nose into the crook between his neck and shoulder, as much a comfort as he can offer. 

“How lovely you are,” he murmurs, again and again, like it’s the only thing he can think to say. “How brave and wonderful, my Crowley.”

Crowley’s abdomen is distended with the sheer girth of the cock inside him, and if he had the presence of mind left to break one of his bonds and place a hand to his belly just to feel it he would. He seems to climax in a peak that never ends, only ebbs and flows without ever fully ceasing. Clenching or bearing down against Aziraphale inside him is futile, because he’s relentlessly fucked through it all, speared and pinned at the ends of the angel’s form.

They both seem to know the end is already drawing near when Aziraphale makes a wounded sound and snaps his hips without rhythm, punching choked sounds from Crowley’s lungs with each thrust. The smell of sex and beast and something like lightning brews in the air, all the rest of the world seemingly gone still and silent around them.

“Let me have it,” Crowley croaks, knowing his body still aches to be filled. “Everything, angel. C’mon.”

“I’m close,” Aziraphale growls in the beast’s throat, promise rumbling there as his movements turn erratic. “You’re so very tight, dear, a perfection beyond measure.”

“Bet you say that to all the other girls and bo—” Crowley had tried to tell him, but then words fail and die within him, strewn across the cosmos like confetti.

Aziraphale or the beast, one and both, lets out a fearsome sound and then drives up into Crowley to the root. He silently shouts with the force of it, wrought asunder, and then comes so hard he nearly bends in half as liquid heat pulses into him like a flood.

The beast spills into him again and again, cock twitching and throbbing with each new release. Crowley writhes beneath Aziraphale’s bulk as his legs shake and the furry heft of his form lowers itself on two forelegs, bowed there over the demon like a repentant sinner.

“Oh, oh darling,” Aziraphale’s pants, voice shaken and full of something raw and honeyed Crowley wants to lay his weary head upon. “That's it, that’s it. Let me give you everything.”

How long they stay sprawled upon that rock on the mountain’s craggy face is hard to figure, but eventually Crowley feels the angel begin to soften inside him, and then the perfect roundness of his full womb gives way as the monstrous cock slips free from where it was plugged into the very centre of him. 

This time it isn’t herbal aphrodisiac and cleansing elixir that spills from his open body, but something warm and milky that pulses forth with each feeble clench of the overtaxed muscles inside him. Crowley moans at the abrupt loss of fullness, feeling empty and barren when the cool air hits the wet pinkness between his thighs.

Aziraphale eventually rises and pulls away, carefully stepping off the altar onto the soft earth. He stretches his great wings, wide enough to clap like thunder upon flight, and folds them neatly at his broad back. For what feels like the first time, Crowley gazes up at him in this bizarre, monstrous form, and truly gives him a full once-over. 

“Well, I think we’ll need to do this again sometime,” he says, boneless against the rock he’s still lashed to. “Walking? After _that?_ Completely out of the question.”

“Is that good or bad?” Aziraphale asks, peering at him a bit queerly, and this time Crowley laughs. 

“S’good, angel,” he rasps. “Better than good, actually. That’s one hell of a way to pop a cherry.” 

“Don’t say it like that,” Aziraphale tuts, furs around his great neck ruffling. “It’s _lewd_ , Crowley.”

“What would you call _this_ and whatever all _that_ was just now then, eh?” Crowley says, eyes heavy-lidded and content. “Gentle spot of lovemaking, it was. Vanilla as they come. Eight o’clock missionary with the sheets up to our necks, all that.” 

Aziraphale seems to roll his eyes as he tosses his head in exasperation, and with another flurry of feathers and white light the monstrous creature is gone, replaced by a blond-headed angel with very rosy cheeks and ears, looking rather drained but nonetheless quite satisfied with himself. 

“Come now, let’s get you tidied up,” Aziraphale says, gently touching each of the restraints at Crowley’s wrists and ankles so they fall away like coiled serpents themselves. A shallow bowl full of gently steaming water appears at his right elbow, and he dips a clean cloth into it and wrings out the excess before going to wash Crowley’s face and chest.

“Don’t gotta do all this,” Crowley fusses, though he doesn’t try very hard to swat the angel’s hands away. “S’not necessary.” 

“Aftercare remains crucial regardless of your penchant for self-deprecation, dear,” Aziraphale tuts, taking the cloth now to the tender soreness between Crowley’s thighs. His hands are gentle and careful, and despite what they just did together this somehow feels even more painfully intimate. 

“Uh, well,” Crowley says, trying not to squirm away under the angel’s ministrations. “Was that good for you, or…?” 

“It was very nice, yes,” Aziraphale says, flushing down to his pale throat. His eyes glance up for just a second before they look away again, busy now with applying something cool and pleasant to the muscles in Crowley’s thighs and abdomen. “Though I can’t help but wish we had been, er—more or less ourselves, I suppose.” 

Crowley lets that soak into him for a moment and then struggles to sit up, letting Aziraphale help him rise on shaky limbs. When they’re eye to eye, or nearly anyway, Aziraphale tries to resume his bedside nursing but Crowley reaches out and wraps his long fingers around the angel’s wrist.

“This doesn’t have to be a one-time free trial, you know,” he says, glancing up from beneath his lashes. Crowley’s heart beats fit to burst in his chest, and he’s sitting here, naked as a lark with his hair in a wild halo of scarlet curls, but it all seems too easy. So simple. His answer, right here, an apple ripe for the picking. 

But it’s Aziraphale who plucks the fruit from the stem first, because before Crowley can open his mouth again there are soft lips being pressed against it, and then the angel is on his knees between Crowley’s thighs, holding his face between two reverent palms.

Crowley keeps his eyes closed, suddenly afraid of what may happen when he opens them again. But all that happens is that Aziraphale eventually pulls away, tucks some of the hair behind Crowley’s ears, and then brings up a length of soft linen and drapes it around the demon’s shoulders to cover his body anew.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Aziraphale agrees, quietly but assuredly in that quaint tone of his. “Nor do I want it to be.”

Crowley gapes at him, eyes and mouth wide. “But,” he tries to say. “What about—your people—?”

Aziraphale snorts out a soft laugh and waves a hand through the air. “If we haven’t been thricely struck down by the Almighty’s fist for what just transpired on this ruddy mountainside, do you think they’re really keeping that close of an eye on what tomfoolery I get up to down here?” 

Crowley’s face breaks into a smile, then, so wide it hurts in the best way he’s ever known. All he can manage to do is lean forward into the angel’s open embrace, tipping their foreheads together so he imagines he can feel the warmth of an invisible halo crowning him as well. 

“So,” he says eventually, feeling the angel’s fingers drawing foreign shapes across the plane of his back and around the bony knobs of his spine. “Is this a truce?”

“For now, foul fiend of mine,” Aziraphale says smartly, and then rises to his bare feet and gathers Crowley up into his arms with ease. “Perhaps it’s been a long time in coming, hm?”

Crowley huffs about being carried but doesn’t struggle much, other than reaching around to make sure his bum is covered by the linen shroud. They start off down the narrow trail that will lead back to the base of the mountain, Aziraphale’s sure feet never once slipping or faltering on the loose stones or earth.

“Well, here’s hoping the mountain spirit’s been _appeased_ with his sacrificial offering,” Crowley says around a wide yawn, perfectly content to rest his head on the angel’s shoulder. “Maybe in a few hours after wine and luncheon I could go for another round of sacrifice, myself.” 

Aziraphale hums some at that, quirking up one fair brow. “Unfortunately for the mountain spirit,” he says, “I do think I’d like to keep you all for myself.”

And thus the angel and the mountain’s last virgin peacemaker descend together without hurry, making their steady way back to the village below, its ancient contract of bounty and safety renewed and sealed once more.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been in GO fandom off and on since I first read the book in 2007 but this is only my third ever fic, if you can believe it. The other two are part of a series of a much different color where Crowley and Aziraphale settle down and have kids after the Apocalypse (it's very soft and family-oriented). I'm still struggling to make buddies in these here Ineffable Husband hills, so if you're on twitter, I'm @honkforhankcon over there :)


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